Former England coach Sir Clive Woodward says Stuart Lancaster should never
have opened the club's doors to the BBC.

Radio 5 Live recorded a documentary about the England team which aired on Tuesday night.

'Inside Lancaster's England' gave an in-depth look into the England camp at Pennyhill Park in the week leading up to their Six Nations clash with Italy earlier this month.

Woodward said: "The working environment of an international rugby team should be absolutely secret — and never more so than in a Test week. International rugby is a very serious business — indeed, it is hard to think of any business that would allow such access."

If it isn’t going to enhance the performance of the team significantly, why do it?

If I had England in my sights, as both Australia coach Robbie Deans and Wales’s Warren Gatland do ahead of the 2015 World Cup, I would listen to every word and capture every piece of information I could.

In a column in the Daily Mail Woodward also criticised aspects of Lancaster's coaching style which were revealed in the documentary including an instance where Lancaster gave a briefing at an RFU council meeting shortly before England's Six Nations match against Wales.

Woodward said: "Why is the head coach presenting to the council on the Friday afternoon before a Test match? Lancaster is the head coach, not the director of rugby, and at that time his only concern must be the success of the senior team."

Woodward also said he felt that England were "getting ahead of themselves" by discussing the Six Nations game against Wales before they had even played against Italy.

Woodward revealed that when he was England coach he had hired security guards to avoid intrusion into the team's camp rather than welcoming in cameras.

He said: "It was all part of creating a world-class environment where security and secrecy was high on the agenda. I wanted to give the players the impression we were under siege, that they were in a rarefied environment available only to them.

"People act differently when a camera is rolling or there are microphones around, it is human nature and you cannot afford to have that distraction.

Knowing what to make public and what to keep behind closed doors is a balance that comes with experience.